Title Illustrations Of Masonry. By The Late William Preston, Past Master Of The Lodge Of Antiquity, Acting By Immemorial Constitution. The Thirteenth Edition. With Corrections And Additions, By Stephen Jones, Past Master Of the Same Lodge.

A very good quarter leather binding. 12mo. 7.00" x 4.25" x 1.25" . pp.24/pp432 . Navy blue leather spine over marbled boards. Spine with 5 raised bands, black leather title label: "Preston's Masonry", and gilt date: "1821". Original plain endpapers, lightly soiled. Previous owner's signature to front free-endpaper: "Fred Hockley". Engraved portrait frontis of William Preston (foxed), "Engraved by Ridley from an Original Painting by S. Drummond A.R. for Preston's Illustrations." "London: Published by J. Asperne, 32 Cornhill, June 1811." Printed title page, with shadow of the engraving. Also: Purple library stamp to the title-page: "Punjab District Grand Lodge Library, 1890." Preface dated; "Dean-steet, Fetter-lane, Feb. 1812. Clear English text throughout, on toned paper. A very good example of an early printing of this popular title. ** William Preston 7 August 1742 - April 1, 1818. William Preston was a Scottish author, born in Edinburgh. The exact date of Preston's initiation into Freemasonry is not known, but is thought to have been between 1762 and 1763, in London. He discovered a vast body of traditional and historical lore in the old documents of the Craft, and begun modernizing the format of group meetings in such a way as to make ritual accessible, bringing a rudimentary knowledge of the arts and sciences to members of the Fraternity. Preston embarked upon detailed communication with Masons worldwide, so developing extensive knowledge of the Craft, and collecting the material which was to become his best known book, Illustrations of Masonry published in 1772. In 15 June, 1774, he visited the Lodge of Antiquity No. 1, (one of the four Lodges that formed the Premier Grand Lodge of England in 1717), and was subsequently elected a member and Worshipful Master at the same meeting. He became an active member of the Grand Lodge, and was later appointed Deputy Grand Secretary under James Heseline. After a brief period of expulsion from the fraternity for his support of a factional disagreement between the Grand Lodge of Moderns and the society over public use of ritual paraphernalia he was reinstated in 1787, all his honours and dignities restored, whereupon he resumed his Masonic activities. *** "Frederick Hockley (1809 – November 10, 1885) was a British occultist and scryer who was a London-based Freemason and a member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Hockley avidly collected and transcribed over many years a vast library of important occult books, works and texts, including a Rosicrucian manuscript belonging to Sigismund Bacstrom, who was initiated into an occult society in Mauritius in 1794. This text had a great influence on British occultism. He established the spiritualist Croydon Circle in 1853, in which he claimed to be in communication with a group of spirits controlled by the Crowned Angel of the Seventh Sphere. This predated the first spiritualist organization in London, known as the Charing Cross Spirit Circle formed in January, 1857. Hockley practiced the art of 'crystallomancy' or 'the art of invocating spirits by the crystal' and believed this to be one of the most important forms of spirit communication. He kept notes on many of his experiments and experiences, accumulating a vast amount of information. It is said that through close knit London circles, his freemasonry connections and SRIA connections, as well as the extensive and vast library he left behind him on his passing that he contributed to the forming and curriculum of the 'The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. It is also alleged that the original cipher manuscript on which the Golden Dawn was formed may well have been written by Hockley. Hockley was a close friend of Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie and other British Rosicrucians and occultists of his period. He was purportedly a pupil of Francis Barrett, author of The Magus (1801). In March, 1884 he joined the London Spiritualist Alliance. Hockley died November 10, 1885." - See Wikipedia .